Pagers and paging systems are widespread and rampantly used in our increasingly mobile society. Pagers are generally used to enable families, friends, and co-workers to be readily accessible to one another. Access is only a telephone call away. As technology has grown, pagers have evolved from providing only telephone numbers to providing much more complex alphanumeric messages and are even capable of accessing services which provide stock market reports and the like. However, due to restrictions in size, pagers are often not capable of executing more complex functions such as controlling operation of devices or communicating large amounts of data.
In situations which require the execution of more complex functions, modems or other devices must be used. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,914,686 discloses a unique method by which a low cost cordless telephone is used to enable remote data logging and a wireless read of data in a remote or hostile environment. Generally, however, these applications are require a significant amount of circuitry and are complex and costly to implement. Certainly, the use of modems and cordless telephones is too costly to implement for most consumer applications. Therefore, in light of current technology, a need remains for a lost cost and effective solution for provided remote control of common consumer applications.